


hopelessly devoted

by translorastyrell (nerddowell)



Category: The Witcher (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Awkward Crush, Awkward Romance, Crushes, M/M, Oops, if that makes sense, in which it's both canon and modern, probably not
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-24
Updated: 2020-04-24
Packaged: 2021-03-02 01:55:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,422
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23827198
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nerddowell/pseuds/translorastyrell
Summary: Geralt’s smile is as devastating as the rest of him, and Jaskier is, worryingly, beginning toagreewith Yennefer. Heiscompletely hopeless.‘Give me a review, then,’ he prompts, voice falsely light. ‘Three words or less.’
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg
Comments: 6
Kudos: 131





	hopelessly devoted

**Author's Note:**

> Working title was _toss a coin to your barista_ , and you have no idea the force of will it took not to keep it. However, Jaskier would 1001% unironically love _Grease_ too, and so you end up with this.  
> Unbeta'ed (and probably showing it) because I'm so frazzled from trying to write this whilst caring for my five-month-old that I literally forgot beta readers exist. No, really. Baby brain is a thing.

‘You can finish, Jaskier,’ Yennefer drawls in that way of hers from where she’s leaning against the counter, sipping her coffee. Jaskier, who takes his orders from Geralt - you know, his _boss_ and the _owner_ of White Wolf Coffee, instead of his girlfriend - turns to the other man and receives a nod and a gruff hum in agreement. Geralt, a man of few words and fewer smiles, shrugs his shoulders and undoes the top button of his shirt; Jaskier, a man of many words and infinite charm, feels his tongue go fat and tie itself in knots inside his mouth. Yennefer, watching as ever with those cool purple eyes, smirks at him.

One of these days, Jaskier will stand up to her, ask what’s so funny about the way he’s so hopelessly gone over Geralt, and - actually, no, he won’t. Because Yenn will give him one of her endlessly pitying looks before promptly pissing herself laughing, and Jaskier will be humiliated. As always when she’s around.

It’s not Jaskier’s fault. He’s always had a thing for people in general but more specifically for competency and the impression that the object of his lust could break him in half, and Geralt certainly fits the bill. He knows how to fix every intricate working of their ridiculous antique coffee machine (competence) and is not only stacked but approximately a foot taller than Jaskier himself. Jaskier looks like some kind of man-child beside him, an unshaven teenager whose voice has only just broken (not, admittedly, all that far off the truth); Geralt in comparison is a mountain of muscles and silver hair, strong jaw always dark with five o’clock shadow and expression permanently stony and stoic.

One of these days, Jaskier will ask why Geralt, who he’s convinced can’t be older than his mid-thirties, has a head of hair whiter than Jaskier’s grandfather, but he gets the sense it’s something of a sore point and doesn’t want to push his luck. It had taken enough of his not-inconsiderable charm to get Geralt to give him this job in the first place. Not many other places were jumping at the chance to hire a university dropout with nothing more than a lute and a (if Jaskier did say so himself) truly spectacular arse to recommend him.

‘As long as you don’t sing to me,’ was all Geralt had said. Jaskier had promised, and had - mostly - kept that promise. The only time he’d slipped up was when he’d walked in that morning listening to ABBA on his iPod and couldn’t resist joining in with _Gimme, Gimme, Gimme_. The laughing expression in Yenn’s purple eyes when he walked in singing ‘gimme, gimme, gimme a man after midnight…’ was more than enough to quell him, even without the stony look from Geralt. He’d quickly tailed off, meekly hanging up his coat in the office, and had quickly got on with restocking the displays before anyone could comment. All the same, he’d heard something in Yenn’s derisive tones, a ‘...completely hopeless, Geralt,’ and an answering hum, as he fetched a couple of cups out of the dishwasher in the kitchen and had felt his cheeks sting pink with embarrassment.

Back to the present, to where Jaskier is trying to squeeze past Geralt’s mountain of leather-clad muscle - honestly, he owned a frankly hilariously hipsterish coffee shop, he wasn’t a Hell’s Angel, so why did he think wearing head-to-toe leather every day and giving Jaskier a heart attack whenever he bent over to restock the fridge was appropriate? - and the oblivious idiot is just. Standing there, all devastatingly handsome and leather-clad and stroke-inducing, whilst his girlfriend smirks knowingly and sips her coffee.

Jaskier takes a deep breath as he inches past, and yet he swears the brief brush of Geralt’s hand over his hip as he passes still sets electricity visibly crackling over his skin; he escapes with a high-pitched, ‘Later, Geralt!’ and slams the door behind him.

It’s only now that he’s outside, in the cold clear air of Vizima, that he can breathe.

* * *

Yenn turns to Geralt, her eyebrow cocked and an amused smile on her lips. ‘How long are you going to let the poor boy suffer?’ she asks silkily. ‘Not that watching him squirm isn’t hilarious, in its own way, but it’s not kind to play with your food, Geralt.’

Geralt just blinks slowly at her before turning back to counting the day’s takings.

* * *

The bar where Jaskier is playing that night is busy, rowdy with people shouting over the clinking of glasses and the hubbub of other people’s chatter. Jaskier settles his water on the table by the fireplace - the spot he always chooses to perform from, being tucked away from the windows so as to prevent any passers-by who might actually know him seeing him and coming in - and plucks at his ukulele strings, twiddling the keys to check the tuning. He runs through the setlist in his head: Queen’s _Good Old-Fashioned Lover Boy_ , Miike Snow’s _Genghis Khan_ , Basia Bulat’s _Oh My Darling_ , among others.

Ugh. He had a _theme_.

Oh, well. Theme or not, Jaskier is not going to imagine himself serenading Geralt with any of those songs. Not least because he doesn’t think twee little twinks playing love songs on ukuleles are anywhere near Geralt’s type, even if he did like music - which ostensibly he doesn’t, judging by the glare he’d given Jaskier when he’d walked in singing. The barmaid is giving him a ‘get the hell on with it’, look, however, so he stops twiddling and strums the first chord.

‘I come home in the morning light, my mother says, ‘when you gonna live your life right?’...’

People are looking up, glasses being set down on tables as a hush falls. The adrenaline starts coursing a few minutes later. This is what Jaskier was born for, entertaining and music and people hanging onto his every word and note. He’s soon letting himself get lost in it, in the warmth of the air inside the bar and the familiarity of the ukulele strings under his fingers, hand shifting to form the chords by sheer muscle memory. He wishes Geralt would let him sing at work; it might even bring more people in, having a live music night once a week or so. He already closes late on Fridays so Yaevinn and the rest of his Dungeons and Dragons group can come in and talk nonsense about kikimores and drowners and graveirs, whatever the hell those are. Geralt even occasionally joins in with them, whenever they need someone of his ‘class’ to participate.

Jaskier neither understands it nor wants to. It is, apparently, one of the very few things he has in common with Yenn.

There’s a smattering of applause as he finishes _Girls Just Wanna Have Fun_ , and he takes a sip of his water, refreshing his vocal cords, before starting _Ho Hey!_

‘And I can write a song - I belong with you, you belong with me, you’re my sweetheart-’

The bartender, a redhead named Triss and old flame of Geralt’s whom he knows through work, is visibly singing along behind the bar. He gives her a wide, flirtatious smile, and she rolls her eyes at him. But by the third chorus, the whole bar is joining in with the ‘Ho! Hey!’s, and Jaskier can’t wipe the smile off his face.

Can’t, that is, until he spots a suspiciously familiar pair of heads leant against the wall at the back of the bar, one black and one a heart-stopping shade of silver.

His fingers fumble over the chords, his tongue stumbling on the words, as he meets Geralt’s amber eyes over the crowd. His boss is watching him with a perfectly impassive expression, and - not for the first time - Jaskier wishes he could read minds, because Geralt’s face is as blank as a sheet of paper. Beside him, Yennefer is smirking, her ever-present sly smile, and he remembers the words she’d whispered to Geralt that morning. _Completely hopeless, Geralt_.

Like he needed reminding that the crush and borderline obsession he had with her boyfriend, who was so obviously obsessed with _her_ , was hopeless.

He sips his water again, pretending he needs a break. Desperately hoping that when he looks back up, Geralt and Yenn will have gone. No such luck. But now, Geralt’s face is almost contemplative, Yenn leaning close - so close she’s almost leaving smudges of purple lipstick on Geralt’s jaw as she whispers into his ear - and his brow furrows over golden eyes. Jaskier doesn’t know what to make of it.

So he starts the next song. 

‘I know there’s no form and no labels to put on   
To this thing that we keep, and dip into when we need.   
And I don’t have the right to ask where you go at night,   
But the waves hit my head to think someone’s in your bed.

'I get a little bit Genghis Khan, don’t want you to get it on  
With nobody else but me, with nobody else but me…’

Yenn’s eyes, bright in the low lights of the pub, flash, and Jaskier feels his heart jump into his throat.

* * *

It’s a miracle he manages to finish the set at all, and although he’s now about thirty-five orens better off in tips (better than nothing, he says to himself), it’s still nerve-wracking to think that despite his best efforts to avoid it, Yennefer - and worse, _Geralt_ \- have managed to track down this one last sanctuary he had. Is nothing sacred? Not satisfied with taking the piss out of him for his crush at work, she’s gatecrashed him here, and brought the object of his affections with her to compound the damage.

Maybe it’s not just Geralt that he’s a bit obsessed with. Maybe it’s the _pair_ of them, gods help him.

Yenn is sat at the bar, talking to Triss and stirring a cocktail with the tip of a perfectly manicured finger, when Geralt makes his way over. Jaskier, whose hands are already shaking, knocks his glass of water off the table whilst trying to secure his ukulele inside its case, and it’s only saved by Geralt’s catlike reflexes.

‘Thanks,’ he mumbles to his shoes, and Geralt hums. God, Jaskier wishes he’d say something, instead of watching him silently with that unnerving yellow gaze. Who even has yellow eyes, anyway? Not just yellow, but gold, like amber. Like coins, flashing in the light of the fire, intense and fierce as the flames themselves. Jaskier’s going to be sick.

‘I didn’t think you liked music,’ he manages finally, and Geralt grunts, shrugging his massive shoulders.

‘I don’t mind it.’

‘That’s not the impression you gave me,’ Jaskier says, affronted. ‘You told me I wouldn’t get the job if I sang to you.’

Geralt, damn him, actually grins. It might be the first smile Jaskier’s ever seen from him, and with the way it makes his knees go weak with how it crinkles the edges of Geralt’s eyes handsomely and flashes those perfect, just-this-side-of-too-sharp white teeth, that might be a good thing. He doesn’t think he could have survived being on the receiving end of another one of those smiles; his heart feels like it’s going to burst apart in his chest to begin with. Geralt’s smile is as devastating as the rest of him, and Jaskier is, worryingly, beginning to _agree_ with Yennefer. He _is_ completely hopeless.

‘Give me a review, then,’ he prompts, voice falsely light. ‘Three words or less.’

Geralt just smiles wider, his hand - massive, really, far bigger than any human had the right to, and if that old wives’ tale about men with large hands is true then Jaskier is going to have a stroke, right here, right now - brushing Jaskier’s on the table.

‘Who were you singing about?’ Geralt asks, low and husky. _Oh, no._ They are _not_ having this conversation. Jaskier catches Yennefer’s eye from the bar, and she raises her glass to him, winking.

He’s going to kill her. Or he would, if Geralt wouldn’t tear him limb from limb like play-doh if he did.

‘Nobody.’

‘Jaskier,’ Geralt grunts, ‘I know when you’re lying to me.’

‘I’m an excellent liar,’ Jaskier retorts, ‘you should see me play poker.’

‘I have,’ Geralt snorts, raising his eyebrow. ‘You lost to Zoltan in three rounds.’

Damn it, that was true.

‘Fine,’ Jaskier huffs, dropping into his seat. ‘I was singing about someone I like. A lot. More than anybody else, really, although there’s no point me admitting it because it’s not like they like me at all, and really, it’s humiliating how far gone I am over them.’ He sighs.

Geralt’s eyebrow climbs closer to his hairline. ‘Jaskier.’

‘Fine! It’s you! It’s you, Geralt, it’s you and it’s completely hopeless and now that you’ve forced me to actually admit to it I’d like to go home and lick my wounds in peace, and possibly actually beat myself to death with my own ukulele because - _mmph_!’

Jaskier - a man famously never, ever lost for words, no matter the situation, is rapidly rendered speechless as Geralt’s hand tightens around his wrist, pulling him closer until he can fit his mouth against Jaskier’s, warm and scratchy where his jaw is stubbly, and if Jaskier thought Geralt’s smile made his knees weak then his kisses reduce them to water. To air. He all but collapses, until Geralt’s arm wraps around his waist to hold him up, and he wraps his own arms around Geralt’s neck and hangs on like a drowning man.

They’re only broken apart by Yenn’s voice, raised from the bar.

‘Melitele’s tits, about time. I thought I was going to go mad from the sexual tension, let alone the pair of you.’

Jaskier blinks at her, then at Geralt. Opens his mouth, and closes it again, like a stunned guppy gasping for air. Geralt’s cheeks are actually turning pink, and he’s more confused than ever.

‘The conversation you dropped in on,’ he murmurs, rubbing the back of his neck with a sheepish expression, ‘was aimed more at me than you. I’m the one she said is ‘completely hopeless’. Right before she told me to - how did she put it? - ‘stop playing with my food’.’

Jaskier stares at him for several seconds before recovering enough to pull him down into another eager kiss, fingers knotted in the long silver tangle of Geralt’s hair.

‘I’m going to kill you,’ he breathes, and Geralt huffs a small laugh against his lips, nodding.

_fin._

**Author's Note:**

> The more I look at the word 'ukulele' in this the less sure I am that I've spelled it right. _Have_ I spelled it right? Jesus.


End file.
